DENVER  Think of stink in its solid form. How high can you pile it? As it turns out, at least a mile.

“This is a tough place to play,” Chargers coach Norv Turner was saying after his football team’s latest sewage spill, this one being Sunday’s 30-23 defeat at 5,280 feet to the Broncos, which in effect ended a season for San Diego that really ended weeks ago.

He’s right about that. It’s the toughest venue for visitors to win in American sports.

But there appears to be no place on earth that would be an easy place for the Chargers to play a good game of football, be it a mile high in Colorado, a mile low in the Grand Canyon, sea level in Aruba, or fanciful Bali Hai or imaginary Farmer’s Field in Los Angeles. Wouldn’t matter.

The Chargers have fallen four games behind Denver in the AFC West, and at 4-6, any chance for a wild card would demand a call for help from a higher authority who probably has grown tired of trying to come to their aide anyway. They’ve plum run out of confessions, novenas and penance. Their candles have been snuffed.

And this, don’t forget, was preached all week as one of those “must wins,” because a victory would have left the local lads just a game behind the Broncos in their division. It obviously became “Must not have gotten through to them” weeks.

There’s no saving this team from itself, because it simply isn’t good enough to beat anyone decent. The Chargers even caught the Broncos when they weren’t at their best offensively. Peyton Manning missed throws he normally could make under anesthesia that would have put this dog to sleep by halftime.

The Chargers did so many things wrong offensively in the first half it’s mortifying to think it wasn’t long ago that this was one of the premier machines in the NFL. It’s so far removed from that, Dr. Hubble couldn’t find it with his invention.

This has become an awful offense, with no rhythm and thus little flow. More often than not Rivers looks like a guy who can’t get off the train tracks in time.

After this mess, Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers said: “It’s the best defensive team they’ve had since we’ve been playing against them.“ That’s not hard to imagine.

The Broncos are not that big defensively, but extremely quick, especially on the outside, where linebackers Von Miller (three sacks) and Elvis Dumervil (sack and forced Rivers fumble) just ran around and through a San Diego offensive line that once again lost players _ at one time guards Luis Vasquez and Tyronne Green were down (starting left tackle Jared Gaither once again rested).

As a result, the Chargers could do nothing early on. At halftime they had 54 total yards and two first downs. Rivers was 9 of 17 for 60 yards and had thrown one horrible interception. The Chargers only score came on a Manning pass batted by corner Marcus Gilchrist to safety Eric Weddle, who returned it for the first score of the game.

The Chargers punted nine times in the first half, and one of those Mike Scifres efforts was blocked, setting up the hosts’ second-quarter touchdown. That’s two blocked punts the past two games.

Manning meanwhile missed wide open receivers. The score could have been much worse than 17-7 at the break, but there never was a real feeling _ even after the offense and Rivers picked up some second-half rhythm _ that they could win the game. There are just too many times when they can’t find their rear ends with both hands _ or anyone else’s hands.

This one can’t be blamed on the defense, which certainly has played well enough to win the past two weeks. Manning was sacked three times _ twice by rookie defensive lineman Kendall Reyes _ and once by linebacker Shaun Philips, who got to Peyton in the end zone for a safety.

But there were stupid penalties, false starts and neutral zone infractions. Twice Rivers couldn’t get the snap in time and avoid delay of game.

“These things happen,” Norv said. “I’d like them not to happen.”

And here I always thought coaching was about teaching and discipline. I don’t know what’s going through Norv’s brain now that he’s obviously a short-timer (unless, as we’ve said, The Vatican gets to work). But it’s unusual for him not to find something to do well on offense.

“Denver took away a lot of what we tried to do,” he said. “We had trouble getting the run going, we had trouble protecting and we had trouble getting open.”

Well, thanks, Norv, in 17 words, you summed up a game for me.

“We had a lot of moving parts,” he said.

True. Vasquez and Green went down (meaning no extra O linemen were left), corner Quentin Jammer injured his calf and receiver Eddie Royal once again aggravated his hamstring. But Denver lost players, too. Top tailback Willis McGahee went out as did corner Omar Bolden.